With Zographos's
skill, the Greek Syndicate prospered for more than
thirty years; he was capable of memorizing an entire
deck of cards, and, at the same time, developed
an unparalleled ability to read his opponent's body
language. The methods Zographos used are indicative
of a prototype card-counting system combined with
what is now known as "tell-play". Both
methods were not widely understood or explained
until long after Zographos's death, in 1953. Zographos
left the greatest fortune ever amassed from card
playing, equivalent to some $5 million at the time.
He once bet one million francs on one hand, when
the syndicate's funds were dangerously close to
extinction.

On the first deal he received a zero-valued card
(the worst card to begin with), the second was the
9 of Diamonds, making a total of 9, a perfect natural.
The hand broke the losing streak against the syndicate,
and Zographos put the 9 of Diamonds on the pennant
on his yacht. By comparison, consider that the great
online blackjack games players Lawrence Revere and
Ken Uston each won only about $1 million during
their lifetimes, and there was substantial inflation
in the years separating their eras from that of
the Greek Syndicate. Following Zographos's death,
the syndicate floundered and was eventually broken
in 1957, as two Hollywood film producers, Jack Warner
and Darryl Zanuck, with an Englishman, Bob Barnett,
won $347,000 when the syndicate lost more than $800,000
in a few days play. An analysis of the last few
hands which led to the syndicate's demise suggests
that the syndicate banker was seriously lacking
in elementary knowledge of the probabilities of
the games. With the end of the syndicate, the popularity
of high-stakes betting faded for a time; but the
syndicate had given, as its legacy to the games
that had both made and ruined it, the mystique upon
which its allure depends.

Suited
or unsuited AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, K], KT, QJ, and QT. These
hands, which constitute the bulk of your normal playable
hands before the flop, require more discussion. They
should usually be played with a thinning approach:
raise if it will help opponents fold, just call if
it won't, and be wary of an earlier raiser. Since
you are aiming to flop the top pair with a high kicker,
a medium strength hand that has its highest expected
value heads-up, you want to force out as many opponents
as you can initially. This is a simple application
of the basic strategy for a pair hand. Winning only
the blinds after you raise is a bit disappointing
with a hand like AQ, but it's better than letting
everyone see the flop cheaply. On the other hand,
winning the blinds with something like QT is a pretty
good result.